Vital Ozone Graphics 3

11 Ozonedepletingsubstanceshavebeenusedforover70years.Assuming thatallproductionwillstopatagivendateforeachproduct, theywillpersist in many places such as insulating and other foams, in refrigerators and air-conditioners, but also in stocks of recovered and contaminated ODS. The jargon refers to these gases still in circulation in different equipment as “ODS banks”. ODS banks the legacy 32

avoidable emissions. Preventing the emissions of all ODS banks in 2004–25 would have avoided approximately 3 to 4 per cent of the total radiative forcing from all anthropo- genic GHG emissions over the same period. It was also estimated that, unless action is taken to avoid the loss, annual emissions will reach 2.3 Gt CO 2 -eq by 2015. This amount is equivalent to the amounts reduced through the measures of the Kyoto Protocol. In 2009, the Montreal Protocol, which focuses only on pro- duction and consumption, started to discuss regulating the management and destruction of ODS banks. The Mul- tilateral Fund now provides some funds for projects that

The relevance of these banks for the protection of both the climate and the ozone layer becomes evident with the following numbers: overall, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel of the Montreal Protocol (TEAP) esti- mated that ODS banks in 2002 contained approximately 400 000 or more tonnes of ozone depleting potential and 16–17 Gigatonnes of CO 2 equivalents, of which 12 Gt in CFCs and 4–5 Gt in the form of HCFCs. As refrigerators are decommissioned and air-conditioners replaced, the gases contained in the old equipment will, unless properly han- dled, eventually be released into the atmosphere. In the meantime, equipment continuously leaks, contributing to

WORLD ODS BANKS BY SECTOR WORLD ODS BANKS BY SECTOR

Global Warming Potential* per thousand tonne of product

Circles are proportional to ODS banks in thousand tonnes :

2 000

10

‘Banks’ are the total amount of substances contained in existing equipment, chemical stockpiles, foams and other products not yet released to the atmosphere or destroyed in destruction facilities.

500 1 000

9

8

100

Domestic refrigeration

7

Medical aerosol

6

Commercial refrigeration

Mobile air conditioning

5

Foams 2 296

Transport refrigeration

4

3

Industrial refrigeration

2

Stationary air conditioning

1

0

0

0,1

0,2

0,3

0,4

0,5

0,6

0,7

0,8

0,9

1

Ozone Depleting Potential per thousand tonne of product

* 100-year time horizon

Source: IPCC /TEAP, Safeguarding the ozone layer and the global climate system , 2005 (data for 2002).